Among the many pieces the Aloha students had to share at the First Annual Innovation Expo was a Snapchat Filter. As someone who feels fairly confident in the area of social media and the art of hashtagging, I had never used Snapchat prior to the March 21st event.

Standing with colleagues from the Future Ready team, we excitedly took a quick selfie so that we could try out the student-made filter. We nailed the selfie- was that even a word ten years ago? But when it came to finding filters to add over the top of the photo we were totally lost. If someone had seen us gathered around the iPhone it was laughable- thankfully all of us were enjoying the self-deprecating irony of part of the Future Ready Team not being able to do this! Luckily the event was full of BSD students and we quickly found one to help us out. She said she “knew a little” about Snapchat and casually swiped left until the AHS created filter appeared. It took her about 2.5 seconds. #schooled. (See what I did there?)

During the iX18 both sides of the gym, student center, cafeteria, and parking lot were bursting with more moments like these; people open to learning from other people. This was more than just the adult teachers teaching the ‘audience’ at the Expo; there were students ranging from Kindergarten to high school acting as the teachers as well! ​They taught:

other students

parents

grandparents

principals

A mayor

And a superintendent. ​

This was a community event centered on learning from others who are embracing the growth mindset. None of that would have been possible without first having teachers who were willing to innovate their own practice in some small way. It takes a willingness to ‘not know’, to figure things out alongside your students, and to let the kids teach you.​

A Successful Event

And this was exactly what the first annual Innovation Expo was all about. Not only did I learn how to find and use a Snapchat filter (#ahamoment) but Elijah from Kinnaman Elementary taught me about how I could use an app called Shadow Puppet to take pictures of my writing and drawing to make a slideshow and then put it into SeeSaw so that your teacher, parents, and peers can see it and comment on it. Emily from Vose taught me how to use Adobe Spark to make a page with background, writing, and photos. The feeling of not knowing is uncomfortable for some, but when you’re standing in a high school gym surrounded by excited students and teachers it’s impossible not to catch the contagious bug to learn more.